Hundreds of Seafair Marathon runners miss bus to starting line

By CASEY MCNERTHNEY, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Sunday, June 29, 2008

About 400 runners, including some who organizers say spent months training for Sunday's Seafair Marathon, missed shuttle buses to the starting line and didn't start the race, even though it was delayed by 15 minutes after organizers realized there was a transportation problem.

The buses, paid for by Seafair, began transporting runners from Bellevue Downtown Park to the Husky Stadium starting line at 5 a.m. Organizers scheduled 30 First Student school buses to make four trips each with a capacity of about 50 people, Seafair spokesman Dan Wartelle said.

The marathon's Web site "strongly recommended" runners arrive early for the 15-minute shuttle. But more people than expected arrived for later buses and the final 6:45 a.m. shuttle.

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Family and friends were allowed to board the early buses, but only if space was available and no participants were waiting, Wartelle said.

The marathon start, scheduled for 7 a.m., couldn't be delayed past 7:15 a.m. because the 26.2-mile route crossed the Evergreen Point Bridge before finishing at Bellevue Downtown Park.

Organizers gave the stranded runners, who had paid between $65 and $100 depending on their registration date, the option of running a 13.1-mile half marathon and transported some of them to that start, Wartelle said.

It's not clear what will be done for the runners who missed the last bus, but Wartelle said organizers want to make sure they and the participants are on good terms.

"I know training for a marathon is a lot of work," said Wartelle, who ran the Seattle Marathon in 1999 and 2000. "The first thing we're going to do is contact all the people by e-mail. We're determined to make them happy."